Marlee has discovered a new, favourite space to loaf in.
As I was going to bed last night, she was wandering around and I started to pet her. Bending over hurts after a while, so I lifted her onto the bed to sit with her. She does NOT like to be picked up, and likes being carried even less, but once she was on the bed and I started petting her, she turned into a purr monster. Rolling around, grabbing my hand, insisting I pet her face, doing cozy toes against my hand, and generally ensuring I was not going to bed any time soon! At one point, I think she saw a cat moving out of the corner of her eye and started to hiss and purr at the same time!
She is such a sweet cat!
In other things…
While doing my rounds this morning, I tried starting my mother’s car.
It didn’t start smoothly, but it did start. It may have been plugged in, but it was still -25C/-13F at the time, so it’s going to complain. I left it to run for a bit, and it was fine.
At this point, I find myself thinking that her car not starting when it was time to leave was God’s way of telling me I should use the van. It was only while driving the van that I realized the car would never have made it through the snow in the driveway at the time.
Of course, I started my rounds with feeding the outside kitties. The kittens spend most of their time on the swing bench now. The thermometer in there was reading -12C/10F. It’s right against an exterior wall, so it likely reading colder than the ambient temperature.
Some of the kitties run off when I come in with the food, while others crowd in front of the door, giving me no room to step down, and try to get into the old kitchen! It would be a lot easier if I could keep the kibble bin in the sun room, but that would just attract racoons.
While I was bending over to set out kibble, I looked up to find one last kitten on the swing bench, looking right into my face.
It was the grey and white bitty tabby! This is the first time I’ve seen it in the sun room, though I did figure it had found its way in by now. I dropped some kibble in front of it and it ran off, but I did see it eating with other cats on the floor, soon after.
The bitty tuxedo was outside, and went after the kibble I put in one of the openings to under the cat house. When it was still there after I topped up the water, I reached over to pet it. It hissed at me and ran the rest of the way under, but at least I got to touch it!
When I was finishing my rounds and going inside, I spotted the bitty tuxedo on the swing bench.
I just love that teeny, tiny white mustache!
Later, my husband got this photo from the bathroom window.
The bitty tabby is at the front. It looks like it’s nursing on its mama – along with one of the grey and whites! Broccoli seems just find with nursing whatever kitten wants to!
They crowd so close together on the swing bench, it’s hard to count them. While looking through the bathroom window, before my husband got the above picture, I counted at least 11 cats on the bend, three more above the heat bulb, and three more on the floor, eating. I couldn’t tell if there were any in the cat bed under the bench.
That cat lady is working to make space for the bitties. She’d like to take them within the next couple of weeks. I don’t know if that will work. They are still too skittish. I’m glad they’re going into the sun room, though, and taking advantage of the huge pile of body heat on the swing bench!
Today is going to be a quiet day of staying indoors and warm as much as possible! Tomorrow, I take the van in to the garage. I’ll be getting an oil change, as well has getting it checked to find out what’s going on with the brakes warning we’re getting. It could be as simple as the brake fluid is low (or too cold). Hopefully, it’s not something major. If it is, we’ll have to decide whether it’s worth fixing, or if we’re trading up sooner rather than later!
What a day this turned out to be – and it’s still the afternoon, as I write this!
Here’s a bitty, so start things out on a positive note!
I eventually saw both bitties, then I saw the tuxedo eating in the sun room. As I finished my rounds, I spotted him in the cuddle pile on the swing bench!
At least the morning started off well.
My mother had called yesterday, and we arranged for me to come over to help her run errands. With that in mind, while doing my rounds, I started her car and let it run for a while. Everything seemed fine, so I shut it off and plugged it back in before going inside.
The woman I’ve been getting our cardboard for the garden from has been selling eggs. I decided to get 2 flats of eggs from her, instead of Costco, and we made arrangements for me to get them while on my way to the city, tomorrow. She’ll be away, though, so her mother has the eggs, in the town nearest to us – but not the town I normally go through on the way to the city. I got her contact information, and was going to just make a side trip to get them on the way out, but since I was going to be running around today, and picking up cash for the eggs in the process, I figured why not make the side trip to get the eggs today, on my way home, instead of tomorrow, on the way to the city?
So that was arranged before I headed out to my mother’s. I was planning on going to the bank then pick up lunch, first, so I headed out very early. I even remembered to grab the empty water jugs to refill.
It’s a good thing I headed out as early as I did!
First, my mother’s car wouldn’t start.
I turned the ignition, and there was nothing. No sound. The fan and the radio turned on, but that was it.
After trying several times without success, I plugged it back in, then headed inside to switch keys. I asked my husband to call my mom and let her know I’d be coming with the van and why, then headed to the garage again.
The van started fine, and I backed out. My daughter had cleared in front of the garage, but had not been able to get back out again since then. I ended up backing into the ridge of snow, so I went back and forth a bit to be in the clear, before pausing to send a message to my brother about my mother’s car, since he likes to keep on top of that. I had to get the van out of the garage to send the message, because there’s no wifi signal in the garage.
I had just finished that and started to move the van, when an alarm sounded and a warning light turned on. The onboard computer displayed the message “check brake system”.
WTH???
I decided to try plugging in the OBDII reader to see if it could tell me something useful.
It wouldn’t connect.
The app just kept scanning for a device to connect with, and never found anything.
After following the instructions to connect, several times over, I gave up. To use the scanner, the vehicle ignition is supposed to be in the “on” position, but without the engine running. I was going to drive it back into the garage and cancel with my mother, but when I started it, there was no more warning.
Did I dare go to my mother’s?
I decided to give it a go.
And promptly got stuck.
The snow on the driveway was deeper than I thought.
Thankfully, I was able to easily back into the cleared area again, reposition the van, and go for it.
I barely made it to the road, but I did get through.
My mother’s car would not have made it, so… silver lining!
I drove until I reached the highway, when I could finally pull over to message my family, asking if the driveway could be done while I was gone. Then I continued to my mother’s town.
It wasn’t until I was pulling into the parking space at the bank that the warning light turned on again. I went to get some cash, started the engine, and it was still there. I drove to the Chinese take out place and parked, but when I started it again to go to my mother’s, the warning was gone.
In the middle of all this, I was contacted by the egg lady’s mother, with an address to pick up the eggs, and had to cancel that, though I offered to pay for delivery, if that were possible.
My mother and I had lunch and visited for a while. I updated the family, and my brother, about the situation, and my husband was able to book the van into the garage to get checked – and for an oil change – the day after tomorrow. I was just starting to message the egg lady’s mother, when she responded to my question about delivery, saying she didn’t drive. Thankfully, I was able to tell her I’d be in town on Thursday with the van, and should be able to get the eggs, then.
Needless to say, I was rather on edge while doing errands with my mother! The warning light did turn on again, in between errands, but then it turned off.
We did groceries last, and I stayed long enough to put away the refrigerator stuff before my mother kicked me out to go home. Usually, I stop to get gas (and buy a lotto ticket!) before going home, but I didn’t even do that. It was straight home – and the warning light stayed off the for the entire drive.
My younger daughter, meanwhile, had spent most of that time doing a marvelous job with little Spewie. It was a real struggle, but she’d managed to clear a lane just wide enough to drive through. I had to stop to let her know I’d arrived, and move the extension cord, because she couldn’t hear me over the snow blower. Still startled the heck out of her!
Did I mention she’d cleared a path just wide enough to drive through? 😄 Getting in and out of the van was a bit of a challenge!
With how hard of a time the little snow blower was having, clearing such densely packed snow, once I was parked and we could see she didn’t need to clear much more by the garage, she went and cleared a path to the gate cam, and enough space to be able to close the gates. I’ll have to open them again tomorrow, for the pharmacy delivery driver, but at least it’s an option, now!
As for us, we are going nowhere tomorrow.
We’re supposed to stay pretty cold over the next four days or so, before things start becoming relatively mild. We’re getting extreme cold warnings, but that’s a relative thing. Some friends in the city we were living in before moving here have been posting screenshots of their weather apps. They’re getting -33C/-27F with wind chills of -45C/-49F today. We’re not supposed to get anywhere near that cold. I’ll be just find with highs of -22C/-8F we’re expected to get a few times in the next week. Even right now, we’re at -21C/-6F, with a wind chill of -30C/-22F, and nowhere near as cold as they are!
Still, this cold is doing a number on both our van and my mother’s car. We’ll be taking the van in, but there is nothing we can do about her car until probably February.
Unless it just starts working again. I’ll try starting it again tomorrow morning, while doing my rounds.
Both vehicles really need to be replaced, but the priority is on replacing our van right now. It’s the most needed vehicle.
Something to talk about while at the garage. Our mechanic now sells used cars, too, and I’ve already talked to him about what we need. Our van is so far gone, if we use it as a trade in, he’d just be sending it to the scrap yard for a few hundred bucks. He suggested we try selling it privately. Someone who can do the work themselves could do well by it, even as just a parts vehicle. But we can’t sell it without having something to replace it, immediately.
*sigh*
So, yeah… a lotto win would sure come in handy right now! I just gotta remember to buy a ticket! 😄
She may still snarl and growl at the other cats, but she’s doing really well. Last night, I put her on my bed and she actually stayed for a while, rolling around and streeeeettcching herself out. I sent a picture to the cat lady, who was shocked. She’d never shown them her belly!
The outside cats have been pretty excited about their wet cat food treats this morning, with a couple of them cleaning out the bowl for me. I’ve been mixing in some lysine before doling it out.
I spotted the tuxedo in his favourite spot under the cat house, so he got a big dollop. I later spotted the bitty tabby under the cat house in a different spot, but couldn’t get a picture. Pinky kept blocking my view!
I left quite early to take my mother’s car to the garage, and my daughters took turns supervising the cats in my room, and indulging Marlee. She has started to jump up onto the bed with them, and rolling around while being petted. She still snarls and growls at most of the other cats, but she was okay with lying on my bed next to Cheddar, which is awesome.
Cheddar is really good with other cats!
Big Rig has been a pain! She wants out of the room, but when we did let her out, she immediately went after one of the other cats. She has only a tiny incision, but if she’s going to be picking fights with other cats, we’re going to have to keep her isolated longer, to give it more time to heal. The last thing we want is for her to open it up because she’s being a big B to the other cats! The problem is, even when being kept in my room, she’s been going after Butterscotch, too! I’m not impressed with her. 🤨
As I write this, she’s made her way onto my arms and is currently using one of my elbows as a pillow, while her body is sliding down and pushing my keyboard further and further away.
She makes it quite difficult to type!
While I was in town, I was early enough to fill my mother’s gas tank and get a car wash. I figured the mechanic deals with enough filthy vehicles. Especially with our current temperatures hovering around freezing, making for some very messy roads. When I dropped off the keys, I was still almost an hour early, so I went for lunch. He wasn’t very busy, and since I was just there for an oil change and coolant check, he got it in and finished before my official appointment, so it was ready and waiting when I got back. It has been so long since the oil was changed (thankfully, it doesn’t get used all that much), the tag from wherever it was done last was unreadable. Whoever did it last hadn’t done a good job, and it may have been leaking slightly all this time. The oil level was a bit low when I checked it, but not much, so it wasn’t too bad, at least. The filter was changed and the coolant topped up as well, and now my mother’s car is very happy! I could feel the difference as I drove home.
Gotta make sure it never gets that long between oil changes again!!!
By the time I got home, it was time to feed the outside cats again. This time, I saw Shop Towel coming a lot closer than usual – he was smelling that wet cat food and I could see he was wanting some! I don’t know of there was any left, by the time he showed up. My focus is on making sure the bitties get their fill.
Shop Towel (aka: Sad Face) was not looking good today!
He has clearly been in fights recently. You can even see blood in his fur on his side. We haven’t been hearing any cat fights, so this likely happened at one of the other farms in his territory.
I want to snuggle that sad faced boy so badly!
I ended up sending a picture to the cat lady. I told her, this isn’t one of our cats, but he’s been coming around for a few years. Because he’s so aggressive with our male cats, we haven’t been encouraging him to stick around, aside from filling his belly. We’re not exactly chasing him off, either. We’d love to actually befriend him, but not with the way he behaves with the other cats. I suggested that, if we could ever trap him, he’d be a good candidate for a TNR.
Much to my surprise, the cat lady said that she knows of a farm with no other cats where he could be released! That would be ideal for him – and there would be a better chance of him being at least somewhat socialized, if he’s not fighting for territory with other males.
Of course, the idea of a farm that doesn’t have cats is just… so foreign to me! 😄 Usually, they just show up.
Now that the car is taken care of and the cats brought home, we actually have some quiet time over the next while. No trips to the city, no errands, no more waiting for the roofers… I can actually stay home for the next few days! About the only thing I expect to need to do is help my mother with her shopping, now that her car is done.
I look forward to tucking my head into my shell and being a hermit for a while!
I left really early to take my mother’s car to the garage. It was a pleasant enough day that I didn’t mind having to find something to do for a few hours, and with the history of my mother’s car, I would not have been at all surprised if the tire blew out on the way.
There’s a reason I’m paranoid about tires.
As I headed out, I paused to look around for the bitty baby that had been under the cats’ house earlier. As I looked around the entry, I startled Junk Pile, who was in the cat bed inside, next to the window. She jumped out of the cat bed, and I could see she had been nursing two of her white and grey kittens.
And a bitty baby looked up at me, smacking its lips.
She was nursing him, too!
We may not know who the mama is, but it’s good to see that a lactating mama with an older litter is willing to take care of another cat’s baby!
The trip into town was uneventful. The tire held its air and didn’t blow out on me. 😄 After dropping off the key, I headed up into the “downtown” area. Since it was about lunch time, I was thinking of going to a particular restaurant, only to find it was partially boarded up and closed! From the damage to the door and frame, clearly someone had broken in. Such a shame! I hope they will be able to reopen. Most of the restaurants along that strip are only open in the summer, for tourist season. This one is normally open all year. They only have five or six tables. Most of their business is take out.
So I decided to have lunch at the Chinese restaurant I used to go to when I was driving my younger daughter to her previous job at the pharmacy for a Sunday shift. They were only open for 4 hours, so it wasn’t worth driving home and back, so I was stay in town, and usually had Chinese buffet for lunch. I was thrilled to see their buffet was open again. This place is also where we will sometimes get a special occasion take out. When we do that, we order enough to last the four of us a few days, so it’s a pretty big order! The owner actually remembered me when I came in, commenting that it’s been quite a while. Yes it has! I didn’t realize how much I missed them until today. It’s not like we ever go out to eat often in the first place! I haven’t had an actual sit down meal here in about three years.
While I was there, I took advantage of having good signal coverage and messaged the cat lady to let her know that I saw the bitty baby being nursed by the one lactating mom that’s still hanging around. She was very happy to hear it. 😊
On my way back towards the garage, I was able to stop at several places for errands. One of them was the pharmacy. We’ve been getting our prescriptions delivered, but have skipped for the last few weeks. One of my husband’s medications, a weekly injection, which I am now also on for a different reason, has only limited coverage with his private insurance. It covers 90% of the cost, but only up to a certain “reasonable dose” amount. At 90%, we were still paying about $70 for one injection pen, which means the retail cost per pen is almost $700. Each pen comes with 6 needles, which gives an idea of what doses are typical, but my doctor had me building up to a dose that is basically the entire amount in the pen. Double what my husband was on! So for my husband, he’d need a new pen every two weeks, while I would go through a pen a week at maximum dose. Even with insurance, my prescription alone would have taken up almost our entire prescription budget for the month – and we already had to increase it because of rising costs! I was on the maximum dose only once when we found out it was no longer covered by our private insurance.
Now, this province has its own public coverage for prescription medications, though it’s something that has to be applied for. After a deductible is paid, the province’s health care system covers the cost. For those prescriptions that are covered by both the provincial and our private insurance coverage, the private insurance covers the 90% cost until the annual deductible with the provincial system is reached. Then it switches to the provincial insurance, which covers the costs 100%. These injections are not normally covered, but when our doctor found out we were having problems, he applied for special coverage. When I went to the post office to pick up the replacement phone, my husband and I both had letters letting us know it was approved.
So I stopped at the pharmacy and got it double checked. Their system showed it was good to go – and they had the prescription in stock, so I was able to get both our prescriptions. I’ve been off it for so long, though, I’ll probably have to build up from a low dose again. Which I don’t mind doing, since it means one pen will last a month, instead of a week. Also, when I last spoke to my doctor about it, he reduced my dose to what the insurance company will cover, so now I’m on the same dose as my husband.
What I’m not looking forward to are the side effects I had from it. It took me a while to figure out that this prescription was the cause of my… volatile intestinal distress, shall we say. The doctor wants to try me on this medication for a year, but if these problems come back, I’m going to ask him to put me back on the old medication. Not only is it cheaper, but I didn’t have any side effects from it.
It took a while for that to get cleared up, and my husband also had his bubble packs ready, so I was able to get our prescriptions done. While waiting for the injection prescriptions to be filled, I used the time to look for some lecithin powder for the outside cats. I did find some, in capsules, but only one brand of supplements. It was also soy based, which is NOT recommended for cats. When the prescriptions were ready, I asked about it, and that was all they had available.
I’ll have to ask the cat lady where she gets hers, because she said she got it as a human supplement (rather then from a vet) for really cheap – and the capsules I found were not very cheap! So many of the kittens have gooby eyes, but there’s no way we can get them to a vet or treat them. The ones with the worst of it are too feral.
So, that will have to wait.
One of my other errands was to get my driver’s license renewed, which required a new photo this year. The vehicle insurance and registration for both our van, and my mother’s car, needed to be renewed as well. So that is now all taken care of, well before our deadline.
By the time I made it back to the garage, they had my mother’s car in, and the tire off, early. My timing was just right; they were in the process of examining the rim.
The tire had nothing wrong with it. It was the rim that was leaking air. With the type of rims my mother’s car has, the chrome starts to peel after a while, and that compromises the seal. It just needed to be cleaned up and smoothed out. After they explained it to me, I was able to drop my bags off in the car, then head across the street for one last errand; a quick stop at the grocery store across the street. By the time I was done, so was my mother’s car.
It cost less than $35 to get it fixed! I don’t think I’ve ever had such a low car repair bill! 😄😄
Before I left, I messaged the family to let them know, and ask someone to leave the wagon by the garage so I wouldn’t have to back up to the house to unload. When I got home, my older daughter was sitting on the front step, absolutely enveloped with kittens running around and climbing her, as she tried to pet them all at once! I think she had something like six kittens, all at once, when I came up with the loaded wagon!
She helped me bring things inside, then I stayed out to refill the kibble bin, then top up their kibble trays outside. I wanted to get all the kittens out of the sun room, so I could close it up for the night. I don’t want any more racoons getting in and eating all the kibble I’d just added to the bin!
I then stayed out to pet as many kittens as I could, do a head count (the number kept changing, but I counted anywhere from 21 to 26!), and look for the bitty baby.
I thought I spotted him, so I stuck my phone past the carpet strips covering the entry to the cats’ house and tried for a photo.
There he was!
After a while, I spotted him climbing the carpet strips again, and I was able to reach in and grab him.
Oh, he’s still a spitfire! That little one was really trying to fight back! I’m happy to say, though, that once I had him in my hands, he does look like he’s grown a bit. He did eventually calm down, and after a good little cuddle, I put him back inside the cats’ house.
I’m so happy he’s doing well and being taken care of!
I think I’ll have to ask one of the girls to take a flashlight, get down on the ground, and look under the cats’ house, though. I was hearing some noises from under there that didn’t sound very catlike to me. It didn’t sound skunk like, either. I did hear one of the cattens making a similar noise later, though, so maybe I’m off base, but if there’s a racoon or something that has made a den under there, I’d like to know about it! It seems unlikely, since when I put kibble on the ground where they go under the cats’ house, I usually end up seeing at least three, sometimes five, little kittens faces at the food. I don’t think they’d be under there, if there were something other than a cat under there, with them!
So today has been a good day. We have good news about the bitty kitty, good news about my mom’s car, good news about our prescription coverage, and even good news about getting my driver’s license and vehicle paperwork taken care of early.
And while I was working on this, the girls made supper, and the house smells delicious! Time to go eat. 😁
We’ve been allowing the kittens to stay in the sun room overnight, propping the doors so that they’re just barely open, since cleaning up the glass in the broken windows. The down side of that is, other critters get in, too. It used to always be skunks, but we hardly see the skunks anymore.
I think the racoons have chased them off.
After deciding to let the kittens use the sun room for the night, I put the extra kibble bags in the old kitchen, the used my husband’s walker, with the brakes on this time, to block the kibble bin into its shelf. This morning, my husband chased a racoon out of the sun room from the old kitchen, but he never actually went into the sun room. The walker looked like it was where it belonged and he didn’t think anything of it.
Well, they did get into things.
When I tried to open the door, I had to push away some things that had been knocked in front of it. The walker almost worked, but was half pushed aside.
The racoons had got at the bin from the side of the shelf, and did this to the lid, managing to get the bin partly off the shelf in the process.
*sigh*
At least the bin was already mostly empty. I’m glad I didn’t refill it instead of putting the bags away.
As for the kitties, they were more than happy to see me with the kibble container! We top up their kibble in the late afternoon, but not too late, because we want to feed the cats, not the racoons and skunks. This time of year, the other critters will clean out every crumb by morning.
I tried to do a heat count and I got to 28! I might have counted some twice. It took a while, but I did see the bitty baby. It was under the kibble house again. I’m concerned the racoons might have scared it – and all the other cats! – out of the cat shelter. I could just see it, but couldn’t catch it. It just exploded with spitting noises at me, and went further under the cat shelter.
While doing the rest of my rounds, I took the time to pump the tire on my mother’s car. After 4 or 5 days, it was completely flat again, but it should handle the trip into town this afternoon, though I plan to leave quite early, just in case I end up on the side of the road or something.
The good thing is, we finally got my new phone set up and activated. Last night, I’d been able to get pretty much everything I needed going, but the one thing I couldn’t get working on the phone was… the phone. The instructions were simple enough. Go online, find the mobility options and activate the new phone. Simple enough.
Except the option wasn’t there.
Now, we are on a family plan, and it’s under my husband’s name. I can log in, but it’s his account, so I don’t like to mess around with it. That’s why, after I’d settled on a couple of possible replacement phone choices, I left it to him to actually go through the final details, then order the phone.
On top of that, my phone number is technically his. When he replaced his old phone, he took that opportunity to get a new, local number and was able to find one that was almost identical to my childhood phone number. So when his new phone came in, we traded sim cards. I got the new phone number, he got the new phone. That was a couple of years ago. Then we ended up trading phones – and sim cards – more recently because of the Bluetooth problem my older phone was having that was not an issue for him.
Odd that it would be the newest phone in the household that would develop a swelling battery and need to be replaced!
Unable to activate the replacement phone, I finally turned it over to my husband so I could work on other things. It took a while, but he finally found the activation option.
Under our daughter’s phone number.
Somehow, when he went through the upgrade process to purchase the new phone, he ended up doing it under her number in the group plan, instead of what the account sees as his number.
Once he got the new device activated, I got the sim card from the phone that was being replaced, my daughter got the new sim card, and her old sim card is now in the phone that’s been replaced. So we all have the same phone numbers, but I have a new phone with an old sim card, while my daughter has a new sim card with an old phone.
The main thing, though, is that we now all have working phones!
Because the new phone can’t support an external memory card, I wasn’t able to transfer everything over from the old phone. So last night, I started transferring everything on the micro-SD card onto my external hard drive. I expected it to take a long time, but it stalled at 16% and stayed there for hours. It ended up locking up my desktop, and I had to do a hard shut down. Even after restarting it, there were issues. After much fighting, I got everything unlocked, then started going through individual folders on the card and transferring them. I knew where the problem was – my photos! I simply have too many of them on there. When I’d set it to transfer everything, it got to the photos folder, and just froze. I have them organized into folders by year, then in sub folders by month, and I’m now having to transfer each month over, individually. Even then, it still takes a while, but at least it’s not freezing my computer!
So that’s something I’m going to have to slowly work on tonight, when I can be around to monitor it. Then, once that’s backed up, I’ll do the same thing with files that did get transferred to the new phone, and see how much storage space I can free up. It’s not an issue right now, but with how many photos I take, it’ll fill up fast. Especially if I’m also taking video.
For now, however, I have a few things to get done before I have to head into town and get my mother’s car in the garage. Thankfully, we’ll be having a nice warm day today, so I will be able to walk around town and do some errands while it’s being worked on.
I’ll be so glad to have that tire fixed, and not have to rely entirely on one vehicle again!
Well, the transfer is done! The bitty kitties were picked up late this morning… but not before they had a good nap.
On me.
After filling their bellies, and cover themselves in kitty formula!
The grey and white tabby is male. He is a show off, so that was pretty easy to determine. It took more effort to check the black and white, but I’m pretty sure it was female.
The cat lady, meanwhile, came baring gifts! A big bag of dry kibble, a cat bed, some small cat blankets, a baggie of cat treats and…
… a toy for the outside cats!
We talked a bit about all the cats running around, with several of them coming right up to her. She noted quite a lot of them look old enough to be fixed, so after she gets the three we have in mind right now done (they will stay with her for a week after surgery, then come back, unless she finds adoptees for them), she will start looking into booking visits for more outdoor cats, and hopefully adopt some of them out, too.
We didn’t stay long after she left with the bitties, heading out to pick up my mother soon after. It was supposed to be a warm day today, but there was a chill wind, and my mother wasn’t too happy about that. We picked up some fried chicken and wedges for a picnic lunch, though, and she was very happy about that! After we ate, the girls took the short hiking path around the marsh, while my mother and I made our way into the interpretive centre. She wanted to visit the gift shop. I ended up buying a cookbook of recipes submitted by volunteers. We left soon after the girls caught up with us again. My mother is noticeably having a harder time walking. It’s a shame we couldn’t load her little power chair into the van for her. The ramps we have are fine for loading snow blowers and riding mowers. Not so great for something more delicate! Mind you, just getting in and out of our van was really pushing it for her, too. My mother was more than happy to go home and get some rest.
The girls and I took advantage of the outing and went to a different town. They wanted to hit the grocery store. Our mechanic’s garage is across the street, so while they did that, I went in to talk to him.
After booking an appointment for my mother’s car, to get the leaking tire looked at (I expect it will only need to be patched), I talked to him about our van. He sells vehicles, too, now, and I was suggesting maybe using it as a trade in – he’s done enough work on it to know it very well – and talked about what we might get. It would have to be another older vehicle, because we can’t afford much, but once the quarter beef and the branch chipping are paid off, we can use that money towards a slightly newer vehicle.
He actually recommended we try selling our van privately. At best, he’d be able to give us $300 for the van, and it would be sent for scrap. On a private sale, we might be able to get about $500. (Or, he suggested, we can just keep it as a back up vehicle.) For someone who has the tools and knowledge to do most of their own repairs, it could still do well by them. The problem is all those little things that go wrong on an older vehicle – it’s a 2005 – that is the issue. There are just too many little things that should be fixed, before they become big things, but taking it in to get them all fixed at a garage is still more than we can afford.
We talked about what sort of vehicle we are looking for; the Grand Caravan we had before did well by us, and this Uplander is doing remarkably well, considering how abused it turned out to have been before we bought it. The Uplander hasn’t been made and sold in Canada since 2010, though. He still finds some decent Caravans, though. The other possibilities we are looking at are an older F150 or Ram1500 – both vehicles that are highly rated for winter driving, and that my husband would be able to get in and out of all right. He happened to have an F150 in one of his bays that was for sale that he could use as an example. It was a 2010 and well out of our budget, but my goodness, it was in fine shape!
Because he’d mentioned scrap dealers, I brought up that – now that our vandal can no longer try to claim the junk here on the farm – we can actually have it sold as scrap. He said to wait. This past spring, the prices where the highest he’s seen, but right now, the prices are down again. They go up again in the spring.
So we will wait.
I think we’ll be waiting with replacing the van until spring, too. Whatever we get, I’d want to be able to have it paid off within a year, and that might not be easy.
Ah, well. We do what we can!
The funny thing is, after the girls and I were back at the van and were about to leave, someone came knocking at my daughter’s window, wondering if he could ask us about how we liked our Uplander. I recognized him as an employee from one of the local hardware stores, so I just got out and went to talk to him. It turns out he needs to replace his wife’s car, and was thinking of getting an Uplander, but had been hearing conflicting reports on how good they are. So we had plenty that we could share with him! I think he found it helpful.
We did get a laugh about his asking about the van, just as we were talking to someone about trading it in for something else!
We shall see how things work out. I’m glad I finally had the chance to talk to our mechanic about it.
Oh, and guess what?
He also hauls scrap. Which makes sense. With all the cars he works with, he’d have plenty to send to the scrap dealer. One of these days, I’ll have him come out to our place and look at what we’ve got and see what he says about it.
All in all, it’s been a very productive day, even though we were away from home for most of it!
Wow, did my order from Lee Valley come in fast! After picking up my mother’s car from the garage, I swung by the post office to pick up the mail, and found this.
Only three days to get here – including the weekend!
Now we just have to wait for enough snow to melt before we can get into the old garden shed, bring out the scythe and get a good look at it.
I was doing a bit of research, and it seems the curvy handle design is called an American scythe. These are apparently known for being very heavy, but the one we have has an aluminum handle, and is very light. I remember having no issues with the weight when I was a kid and my dad was showing me how to use it. Being much older and more broken now, I expect to fully appreciate the light weight and more ergonomic design! :-D
As for my mother’s car, my daughter drove it home, and she reports it running just fine. Nothing out of the ordinary, and the check engine light stayed off. We also didn’t get charged for the check up. He did the check, cleared the codes and ran it for an hour, and found no issues. So it does look like it was simply triggered by the changing of the battery. That was best case scenario, too.
We are supposed to be warming up, and predicted highs and overnight lows were all forecasted to be above -20C/-4F at night, and around the -15C/5F range during the day. Pleasant stuff, really.
At the same time, the app on my phone had a warnings that the cold spell would through to today. I’d read that, look at the forecasted temperatures, and wonder what “cold spell” they were talking about.
This morning, the actual temperature was -28C/-18F before wind chill.
We’ve already warmed up to -16C/3F as I write this, but it’s frustrating to see such wildly different predictions, at the same time, within the same app.
For the outside cats, this is spring, already.
And by “spring”, I mean “mating season.” This morning, I looked out the kitchen window and saw Tuxedo Mask, whom you can see by the water bowls in the above photo, getting lucky with Broccoli.
We don’t know how many female cats we have out there right now; most of the newest cats that are reaching their first birthday in the next couple of months, are cats we haven’t been able to get close enough to see. Of the ones that we could, only Nosencrantz, who is now fixed and indoors, and Broccoli, whom we can’t touch, were identifiable as female. Of course, with the older cats, we know that Ghost Baby, Junk Pile and Rosencrantz are female. Tuxedo Mask is Junk Pile’s baby, while Broccoli is Butterscotch’s, and with both tuxedos and calicos showing up in litters only since we’ve moved out here, we’ve at least got some new bloodlines being introduced. When we first moved here, it was mostly orange tabbies.
By the time the Cat Lady is ready to start taking in outdoor cats for adopting, we’re probably already going to have more kittens. Which I don’t mind, really. If they got taken earlier, they’d probably still get spayed, and I’m not okay with kitty abortions any more than I am human ones. They can be spayed later.
While setting food out under the shrine, I found myself being watched! I’m not sure which if the ‘iccuses this is, other than it’s not Chadiccus, who was busily trying to trip me over by the kibble house, or Bradiccus, who it the only one with a white tail tip.
Speaking of trying to trip me…
Agnoos really wanted attention!
When I came into the sun room, he had the prime spot in the window, on the pillow lined box. :-D
We’re leaving the sun room doors propped open regularly now, with the heated water bowl in there kept on. The outside heated water bowl had ice across the top, but was not frozen solid, which suggests it is still working, at least a bit. Very odd. I look forward to being able to being able to pick it up and give it a thorough examination. Since we know the extension cords are fine and the water bowl is still plugged in, that leaves the cord to the bowl itself, and most of it is under packed snow. Maybe the deer stepped in it or something and damaged it somehow. There is nothing obvious that can be seen, without being able to actually pick up the bowl and looking under it. At least we’ve got the second one’s cord taped up and it’s working fine, inside the sun room. It just means we can’t close the outside doors completely! With things warming up (if we can trust the forecast), that should be okay now.
In other things:
We have our van back. The tensioner got replaced and, so far, that seems to be making a difference – though I get the sense that there is something draining our battery while the engine is off. No idea what it could be. The mechanic wasn’t seeing anything obvious.
Our wipers are working again. Something got misaligned somehow – possibly accidentally knocked about while the alternator was being replaced. With the wipers mounted so low and under the hood, that’s entirely possible. It took next to nothing for him to fix it, and there was no charge for it. The cost to replace the tensioner was on the low end of the estimate, so we are still under budget on that, which is nice.
As for my mother’s car…
We’re still hopeful it’s something minor setting off the check engine light. After I’d sent him the codes my scanner showed, he’d done his own research. If it is related to the transmission, he couldn’t do the work himself. With one code’s possibility, it would have to go into the city to get the work done. With the other, it might have to go to a Dodge dealership for recalibration after the part was installed – a part which he might be able to find second hand, for $1200.
That would be the less expensive of the potential problems.
Not going to happen.
Those are the worst case possibilities, and our mechanic knows we wouldn’t be able to afford that kind of work. It’s my mother’s car, but I already know she wouldn’t pay for it, even if I asked her to, which I won’t. I’m sure he remembers how difficult it was to get her to pay for the major work that needed to be done, the first time we brought her car in to him. He’d owned the garage for less than a year, at the time, and her car was stuck on a lift, with parts and pieces removed, for about a month before my mother finally agreed to pay for it. My mother firmly believes that all garages lie and cheat little old ladies like her, so even if work clearly does need to be done, she doesn’t believe it. My poor brother put up with a lot of abuse from her, when he was the one getting her car taken care of for her. He’s much kinder and gentler than I am, and her behaviour was very hurtful to him. I’ve become an old crone with very thick skin and, as frustrating as her behaviour can be, at least she can’t hurt me anymore. My brother is a much better person than I am! :-D
All that over a car. :-/
We shall see what the garage finds. I don’t have any expectations for when he can give it a thorough check, since he’ll be working it around the appointments he already has.
All in good time.
Meanwhile…
When we discovered the belt broke on our new vacuum cleaner (probably my fault… LOL), I ordered replacement belts from Hoover in early February. They sent me a USPS tracking number, but it always read, ‘information unavailable’. Once we got a running vehicle and I could check the mail, confirming it was not in, I contacted Hoover about it not being in.
I got a response saying that, according to their information, it was delivered. It turns out that, once the package got to Canada, it was shipped by Purolator. I got a new tracking number and…
According to Purolator, it was delivered to us on Feb. 28.
We did not get any deliveries.
I wrote back saying we don’t have it; wherever they delivered it to, it wasn’t us. I also mentioned we might not even be in their delivery zone.
This morning, I got a new email. They’re sending it to us again – with a different delivery company! I also got an order confirmation for the re-order. I made sure to write back to explain our physical address won’t show up on GPS because our road is not labelled on maps, asking that our land line phone number be available for the driver if they need to call for directions. I also made sure to mention we are in a cell phone dead zone, so a driver might not be able to get a signal in our area.
I recognise the delivery company name, though, only because companies my daughter has ordered from have used them. They are not common here. If I remember correctly, they were one of the delivery drivers that left her package tied to the gate.
We’ll see how that works.
I think it’s time for me to send another edit to Google Maps to get our road properly labelled.
After seeing a deer eating cat kibble out of the kibble house, it was no surprise to find the trays were completely empty and tossed about this morning.
What was alarming was the remarkable amount of blood, inside the kibble house!
I was able to get a photo after I’d straightened things out and the cats had a chance to eat. This is the largest patch of blood, but there was blood all across to the other side, too.
You can even see spots of blood around – and in! – the water bowls!
None of the cats looked injured. I was worried when I couldn’t see Potato Beetle right away, but then he came running and went into the sun room to eat.
I noticed that the heated water bowls water was frozen, so I checked through the opening in the cat’s house, confirming that it’s still plugged in. I knew the extension cord into the house was still plugged in, which left one more place to check.
That required some digging.
We have the plug ends in a waterproof cord protector. While clearing the snow from along the sun room, so the sump pump hose could be put back where it belonged, the extension cord running under the door got snagged a bit. The door kept the cord from being pulled from that direction, so this cord protector got pulled, instead. I thought perhaps it might have been enough to unplug the cords a bit, inside.
They were fine.
I did, however, find this.
More blood drops, next to the deer poop.
There was a very small blood trail up the shoveled cat path to the storage house, then it continued down the path the cats made in the snow, along the side of the building. The cat’s path then splits, with one going around the back of the building, and the other continuing across the yard towards the collapsing log building. The snow was too deep for me to follow it, but I could see a few spots of red towards the collapsing building.
I don’t hear anything on that side of the house from my office/bedroom, but the girls never heard anything either, and they usually hear all of the cat fights. My husband’s window is closest, but he sleeps with a CPAP, so he doesn’t hear anything. It’s not loud, but enough to make a difference.
For the amount of blood in the kibble house, I would expect it to be really obvious if one of the yard cats was injured, but they all look fine, running around in the sun and enjoying themselves. I stayed out to do a burn, and had plenty of time to watch them as they checked me out. No visible signs of injury.
Which is both alarming and perplexing.
Since I was outside, anyhow, I left the door to the sun room open.
Which Rolando Moon appreciated!
They all like that box with the old pillow in it best. :-D
They will be most upset, when this corner gets converted to a greenhouse again!
I’ve left the doors open slightly, and let Rolando Moon continue to enjoy her sun spot. :-)
Meanwhile…
I’m still waiting to hear from the mechanic about our van. When that’s ready, I’ll drive my mother’s car over and switch vehicles, so it can be checked again. The codes that came up for my mother’s car were not particularly informative. On the one hand, it could simply be that work was done, and the check engine like would turn off on its own after a few days. On the other, it could be transmission troubles. I’d been messaging with my brother as well as the mechanic, yesterday. My mother has had troubles with this car, with my brother getting things taken care of for her until we took that job over, for a long time. She’s told me to sell the car a few times. I mentioned this to the mechanic; he knows what budget I have left, the last of which is going towards the van right now, and that we are on a fixed income. He told me he would do a complete safety check and see what comes up, as well as looking up the value of the car. If it does end up needing more work than it’s worth, he said he’d be willing to buy it off of us for his lot. It turns out he has a few cars he sells, too. I had no idea until yesterday! I mentioned that we do need a small car for my mother, since it’s dangerous for her to struggle in and out of our van, he said he has a few smaller cars, and would be willing to take my mother’s car in as a trade.
That takes a load off. I would, of course, still talk to my mother and brother about it, if it came to that point. My brother is already up to date on the situation, but I’m not going to try to explain it to my mother, just yet. It’s entirely possible there’s no major problem at all, and all we’ll need is for the mechanic to reset the codes.
In other things, today is the first day of Lent. For the last few years, the thing I’ve given up for Lent has been Facebook. As I’ve been signing up on a number of platforms to try and move away from Facebook, I’ll be giving them all up for Lent. Even on platforms like Messenger, Signal and Telegram, I’ll be staying off groups and just using them for direct communication, and my video platforms will be reduced to research and learning videos only. Blogging will continue as usual, of course.
It’s not going to be easy. I spend way too much time online, though, so this will be a good thing. Besides, if it was easy, it wouldn’t mean much to give it up for Lent!
Like this picture of Nosencrantz my daughter took.
She was very, very interesting in smelling my daughter’s phone!
While doing my morning rounds, I got entertained by Chadiccus.
Who just loves flinging himself onto the ground in front of my feet and rolling, trusting that I will somehow not step on or trip over him.
The morning rounds done and critters fed, my daughter and I headed to town to pick up my mother’s car and drop off the van again.
New batteries are a lot more expensive than I remember. The bill was over $200. Which was less than half of what we had budgeted, so that worked out. Getting a new tensioner for the van installed is going to cost between $100 and $150.
After paying for the work on the car, then dealing with the van, my daughter drove my mother’s car across the street to the grocery store to do some shopping. I caught up with her, but just needed to get a couple of our big water bottles refilled, so I was quickly finished and went to the car. Things being a bit chilly, I started it to warm up.
The check engine light was on.
*sigh*
I sent a text to our mechanic about it. He told me it was there when he’d started it, but hadn’t scanned it. He just assumed it had been there before, like with our van. Since we’d never been able to start my mother’s car after that “pop” happened, I’d never seen it before.
My OBDII scanner was in the van.
So I walked over to get it, and happened to cross paths with the mechanic as he came out to get the next vehicle he had to work on. We chatted a bit, and he’ll let us know an estimate on the wipers for the van as soon as he can, then I went to do a scan on my mother’s car.
The first issue was finding the port to plug the frikkin thing in. I knew more or less where it was, but just can’t see it. I took several flash pictures of the underside of the dash before I could finally see it, then I still had to find it by feel.
I finally got it in and did a scan, and got two fault codes with a message reading “2Gray fault codes might only be clearable by the ECU itself after ‘N’ fault-free drive cycles have completed.”
One of the codes was P161B and labelled “null”. When I did the web lookup, it came up as “not found.” Once at home I did a search, specifically for the code and my other’s make and model car, and got some information.
“… It is a check engine light code which indicates that the catalyst’s system efficiency is less than the required threshold. In simple terms, it means that more pollution is added into the air than what was supposed to be because of your car. Other symptoms that may indicate this problem are when the Check Engine Light illuminates and when there is a visible lack of engine power.”
For possible causes:
Rarely – faulty Powertrain Control Module (PCM-programming required after replacement)
Rough running engine due to misfiring plugs. Many engines have misfire codes to indicate the cylinder effected, such as P0307 for number 7.
A large vacuum leak would cause a massive amount of un-metered air to enter the intake manifold resulting in an overly lean mixture.
The engine is running smoothly.
The other code was: P0700 Transmission Control System (MIL Request)
The web look up had some pretty extreme possibilities, ranging from ‘work was just done’ to ‘transmission is worn out’.
Looking it up at home, I found:
Faulty transmission control module
Transmission valve body fault
Shift solenoid issues
Open or short in the wiring harness
This car has a long history of electrical problems.
Looking at the symptoms:
Check Engine Light displayed on the dashboard
Poor gas mileage
Transmission shifting problems
Engine stalling, running poorly, or dying
I’ve noticed poor mileage for as long as we’ve been taking care of the car for my mother, however it doesn’t seem to have any problems shifting that I can remember, nor does it have a history of stalling, etc. When we got the EGR valve replaced and our mechanic told us to stop buying gas where we were, we also stopped buying gas there for my mother’s car, and it has been running noticeably smoother, since.
Well, I guess when we pick up our van tomorrow, we will be dropping my mother’s car off again to get looked at. It may have a spiffy new battery, but we never did find out what that “POP” noise I’d heard was from.
My mother has been talking about selling the car for quite some time. My brother and I have both resisted, mostly because we do need a smaller car that she can get in and out of. It is very difficult for her to get in and out of our van, and I’m the closest one available to help her with errands. It’s also been our emergency back up vehicle.
It would be bizarre, indeed, if we end up having to sell and replace my mother’s car, faster than our van.
That’s a decision we’ll have to make, together with my mother and brother, after the garage has had another chance to check it out.
On a more entertaining note, my daughter came in while I was writing this and shared something she’d seen. When we got back with my mother’s car and parked it in the garage, my daughter went ahead to get the wagon to bring our stuff to the house. As she entered the inner yard, she startled a deer – in front of the kibble house! Our first confirmation that yes, it has been the deer drinking up all the water when we’ve found the heated water bowl empty. Because of where my daughter was, the deer started running down the cat path to the storage house, then cut through the West yard to go to the maple grove. The snow, however, is so deep, it had to repeatedly leap, as if jumping a fence, just to get through. It was quite a struggle!
No surprise we are seeing so many deer on the roads these days. They can actually move around.
The Re-Farmer 